AROUND THE WORLD

Rescued man says he lived on frogs, lizards

April 16, 2006|By Items compiled from Tribune news services.

DARWIN, AUSTRALIA — A skeletal man claimed he survived for three months in the Australian Outback by eating frogs and lizards.

Ricky Megee, 35, from the east coast city of Brisbane, was severely malnourished when he was found sheltering on the bank of a dam on a remote cattle property in the Northern Territory, near the Western Australia border, in Australia's tropical north on April 5.

"[I ate] leeches out of the dam, frogs, grasshoppers, any sort of bugs that came within distance for me," Megee said Thursday in the Northern Territory capital Darwin after his rescue, adding that he also grilled lizards.

He told some media his car broke down, but told others that he was carjacked.

A police investigation has not uncovered any evidence "to suggest any criminal offenses have been committed."